Barry, the rich will always find a way to avoid paying taxes. "Taxes are for little people." remember who said that? (for $100 and must be in the form of a question)

The middle class are the ones always getting screwed. The poor get food assistance, medical assistance, college assistance and housing. If I wasn't a greedy person, I could live on that. __________________Terrence P. Tuffy

Be steady in your convictions, and be a person of your word.
Book of Sirach 5:10

There is a lot of truth to that...but the Estate Tax was a great way to catch em going out the door. If the threshold was set at $10 mil. none of us would know it was there... I hope to meet that level of test but think it unlikely.

Before it was repealed, it only hit about 3000 people a year. I can live with that.

As I have said here before, if Republicans wanted to ANYTHING for the REAL people in this country they would have repealed or fixed AMT which hit the middle hard and unfairly. But then who are their masters who gave them the millions to run the political ads to scare the masses to vote for them? The VERY rich of course!

Terry, for one hundred, Who was Leona Helmsly? Yep, past tense, she died a while back. Friend of mine was one of the IRS agents who worked on her case and took her down. Or, would that give me the edge for the question in answer?

Glad to see one guy's little thread, in somewhat of protest of another's being locked, has done so well. Also happy to see more folks having opinions in response to other's opinions. However while everyone seems to be stuck on the fence issue, there are others. Like the safe shores policy of allowing refugees who make it to land, from the sea, to stay. How many boat people, or raft/innertube, people have come this way? How to prevent this, returning the submarine nets from WWII? Mining coastal waterways? Fences are like locks, all they do is keep honest people honest. If one wants to climb, tunnel or cut through, they will! Even the Berlin Wall, with all the towers and guards, was breached many times. The quest to reach freedom is often stronger than the barriers preventing one from attaining it. The resources and money spent by BICE ( Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ) would be better used in breaking down the issues and concentrating on situations as they arise, rather than trying to prevent them from occuring. There are simply too many leaks in the dike, to plug them all.

__________________Bob Johnston
Even being good for nothing, makes you good at something!

I suspect it very unlikely that Senators would be voting full SSI benefits to illegals when they can't figure out even how or if to make em legal and they know that SSI is going to be way over 'taxed' already.

Also, SSI is not a free entitlement in that you take out proportional to what you put in....or less. It is true that disability will get you a payout as well though w/o contributing.

Here in N.Y., our governor wants to give them driver licenses. Now with some outcry about this, there is too some sense to it. First, they need a valid passport to apply. Plus, once having the license, they'd be on record as to having an address (hopefully a verifiable one anyway) and a physical description, including a current photo. Yes, invite them to get easy pass, which tracks their movements and can be used in criminal cases. Plus, if caught driving without insurance, they can be fined and found when they blow off the court date. So, there are some good points to his proposal, if one take a second to look deeper. This, when one considers many illegals first came in with valid passes, helps weed some of them out after the visas expire. Maybe this "liberal" democrat is a bit smarter than some give him credit for! Still has some of that attorney general streak in him methinks. Leaving for Vegas tomorrow to visit the daughter. Have already gotten the return ticket, just in case! Be back next week, stay well folks.

__________________Bob Johnston
Even being good for nothing, makes you good at something!

I agree with you totally. Here in California they wanted to ban illegals from schools for all the obvious reasons. I voted against it. Who wants a million kids loose and uneducated running around making trouble? At least in school you can keep an eye on them until they are deported.

Drivers licenses are the same thing....no insurance, no accountability. Then the penalties for driving w/o a license should be more severe and enforced.

Eliot Spitzer's idiotic plan to grant drivers licenses to illegal aliens appears to be dead. And it ended because of the overwhelming public outcry against it. Also, we can thank some courageous DMV officials who vowed to defy the governor's edict and his arrogance. Granting drivers licenses to illegal aliens is all about getting them into the voting booth. One didn't need a "deeper second look" to figure that one out. John Byrne '71

SSI (Supplemental Security Income) is a needs based program administered by the Social Security Administration and funded from General Revenues, and requiring no work history. For the last 33 years it has been essentially a replacement for what used to be called Welfare (aid to Aged, Blind and Disabled). Lawful residence is a requirement for SSI.

The legislation referred to affects Social Security Benefits (Retirement, Surviviros and Disablity Insurance) all of which depend upon insured status. That is eligibility depends on the worker having earned specific amounts in employment coveredby FICA taxes and other crtiteria.

The question is, is it alright for someone to fraudulently use a Social Security number, pay FICA taxes on that number, and then avail him/herself of that coverage if they later become legally admitted to work. The argument in favor is that the taxes got paid so why worry about it? Others would say that there needs to be a deterrent to fraudulently using someone else's number. I am with the latter.

Originally Posted by JohnByrne71Bob,Granting drivers licenses to illegal aliens is all about getting them into the voting booth. One didn't need a "deeper second look" to figure that one out. John Byrne '71

That brings to mind Gore's scheme in 1996, the one million new citizens he wanted rushed through. It was one of his staff, married to a 'Hispanic rights' activist', whatever that means, who gave snore the idea. Net, net, it's estimated that tens of thousands of felons past through the hurried back ground checks. But that didn't matter, they were expected to vote for the Democrats.

Sp then, why was the Chimp so emphatic in his support? There is plenty of blame to go around Johnny boy....

Quote:

Also, we can thank some courageous DMV officials who vowed to defy the governor's edict and his arrogance.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with you on this one. Next time an illegal hits your car, has no license, therefore no insurance and YOU have to pay, you will understand this better.

Drivers licenses need not all be the same and there fore a legal resident has one differrent, perhaps in color and certainly in privilege versus an illegal. Then at least you have trackability and some accountability. W/O a SDL you can not gt mandatory insurance.

These issues are two edge swords. You think it is blocking their illegality to deny them the license. I see it as blocking their accountability.

You probably would argue that anyone caught by a cop for any ticket (and no license) should be deported. I can't argue against that except that local cops do not have border control authority nor are they equipped to do anything.

No one is approaching this issue as whole or intelligently. So we get no solution. Eventually you know it will result in virtually open borders and I dare say, a collapse of the social support network such as schools and hospitals. We are stalemated and there isn't a single politician on either side that has a real plan.

Sp then, why was the Chimp so emphatic in his support? There is plenty of blame to go around Johnny boy....

I don't remember anybody outside the Democratic party supporting that ridiculous plan. I know the INS was against, as was any sensible person. No Barry, tens of thousands of felons became US citizens courtesy of Al's get out, or buy, the vote drive. __________________
John 8:32
Veritas vos Liberabit

Actually I was relying on my memory of an article from years ago that statistically broke down the number of murders, rapists, etc you'd expect to find in a sampling of one million immigrants. It may have read only tens of thousands of criminals, not felons. But there Janet Reno's testimony before Congress in March of 1997 on this scandal.

"Seventy-one thousand rap sheets for the end--have been identified as having FBI records. Thirty-four thousand, seven hundred individuals have been arrested only for administrative violations. Twenty-five thousand, five hundred individuals have been arrested for at least one misdemeanor, but no felonies and ten thousand, eight hundred individuals have been arrested for at least one felony. The presumption was based on the FBI's processing estimates the presumption was that if there was a record, it would be--it would be identified in 60 days and returned to us. If we did not hear anything, we assumed there was no record. That is the system that we had been operating."

That is what the administration admitted to. I can't imagine they OVERSTATED the numbers.

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